Fairytale Ending
by Scribbler
Summary: Merfolk have no souls. When they die they return to the sea as foam, while human spirits go on living after their bodies are gone. Sora receives a frantic message to come to Atlantica, where Ariel has made an awful choice to complete her change to human.


**Disclaimer****: **Protectively not mine.

**A/N****: **I started a challenge on LiveJournal for people to provide me with pieces of fanart that I would attempt to write fic for. This was supposed to be a drabble. Evidently I can't shut up when I'm mutilating my own childhood.

Based on disney-funker. deviantart. com/art/OMG-POOR-ARIEL-87183534

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_**Fairytale Ending**_

Fic © Scribbler, April 2009.

Image © Disney Funker, May 2008.

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"I worry about her sometimes," King Triton often said of his youngest daughter. "She's too curious for her own good."

"Curiosity killed de catfish, you highness," Sebastian would solemnly reply. He'd come up with the response years ago and it'd pleased him so much he always said it. "But Ariel isn't totally naïve."

"No," Triton would sigh. "Just very innocent and trusting."

"An' not too good at seein' de consequences of her own decisions."

"That too. If I had a pearl for every time she didn't think things through properly before deciding to do something, the treasury would be overflowing."

"Which would pay for my chiropractor, mon." Sebastian rubbed ruefully at whatever part of him had been injured in Ariel's latest predicament. "It always seems to be me who's draggin' dat girl outta trouble – whether I start out involved or not."

They were proved right, time and again. Ariel tried hard, but she couldn't help her own inquisitiveness, and it led her into disaster, after debacle, after calamity. Her enthusiasm was irrepressible. She couldn't help thinking everyone looked at the world the same way she did, and being betrayed when they took advantage. She always cleared up her messes, or someone bailed her out, and she'd be so contrite everyone would forgive her. Afterwards she'd try her best to stick to the rules, and for a while she'd succeed, but eventually her curiosity reared its head and the whole process started again.

Triton loved her, but she was aging him faster than waves wearing away a sandstone cliff.

"Surely my father never went grey this quickly."

"Beggin' your pardon, Majesty, but dat's not my place to say," said Sebastian, readjusting the sling on his claw and the bandage around his head.

"No, I suppose not." Triton curled one lock of beard around his finger in idle thought. Seven daughters, a whole kingdom to care for, an ocean to rule, and what was his biggest cause of stress? One sweet-natured sixteen year old girl who couldn't keep out of trouble.

"She needs a hobby," said Attina a she pulled sticky seaweed gum from her hair.

"She needs to grow up," said Arista when she found pages of Ariel's half-baked plan to build a 'human boat thing' that worked underwater.

"She needs a _boyfriend_," groused Adella while clearing up the mess in the princesses' bedroom after Ariel unintentionally rode a wild seahorse through it.

"A boyfriend?" Concern flared in Triton. Ariel was his youngest. The other six had all had suitors, or at least gone through teenage crushes, but Ariel had never shown any interest in that sort of thing.

"Sure. Whenever I get a boyfriend I never have time for anything else," Adella said knowledgeably. "If Ariel got a boyfriend she'd stop making so much trouble, trust me."

Triton wasn't sure he agreed with that, but when he found a family of starfish stuck all over his throne because, as Ariel shamefacedly admitted, 'I went into the tunnel where they made their home and collapsed it by accident when I picked up a pretty rock, so I have to find a new home for them', Triton had to admit he'd like a quieter life.

He was more relieved than he felt able to say when she fell in love. He was initially angry her choice was human; disappointed as well that Ariel seemed to have forgotten how terrible humans were, and how much pain they'd caused their family. Yet against all expectations, Prince Eric turned out to be a good man. Triton couldn't fault him after he saved Ariel from the Sea Witch and risked everything to be with her. The sea was death to him, but Eric still jumped in when Ariel needed him. That kind of love was once in a lifetime, like he and Athena. Triton still missed his wife every day, and wasn't about to deny their inquisitive, excitable, courageous little girl her own chance at true love.

He thought about Athena a lot as he watched Ariel in her happiness. It used to be that when he thought of her, his hatred for humans came up as well, but in the days following his encounters with the Keyblade Master, and the run-up to the wedding, Triton found himself having to confront his prejudices and relent. Humans were like merfolk – not all good, not all evil. The pirates who had killed Athena were not the same as Eric's court, and the diplomat wedding guests weren't the same as off-worlders like Sora. Humans were a mixed bag, and it was finally time for him to accept that they weren't _all_ responsible for everything that was wrong with the world.

The wedding itself brought back memories, both treasured and painful – Athena when she told him she loved him, Athena holding her arms out to him, Athena laughing her way through their vows because she giggled when she was nervous.

"I'm sorry," Ariel said to the po-faced priest through her giggles. "I mean, I do. I do take Eric to be my husband. I do!"

When the reception party was in full swing, Triton excused himself for a private moment with his memories. He wasn't left alone for long, however.

"Hey, King Triton." Sora, who had arrived with the off-world entourage that included King Mickey, had hopped from rock to rock and stood over Triton like that was appropriate. The boy seemed to have no concept of hierarchy, or how to show deference to his superiors. Most of the time it seemed like he had no concept of superiors at all. Everyone was equal in Sora's eyes.

Maybe that was what made him such a great warrior. Sora was a champion of the commoners and those who couldn't fight for themselves because he didn't see himself as better than them. Triton wondered what Sora's homeworld was like. Was he the product of where he'd come from, or was this distinctiveness all his own?

Sora sat down next to Triton, kicking his narrow human heels against the rock. Together they watched the feasting and dancing above them on Eric's flagship.

"You really love her, don't you?" Sora said at last.

Triton leaned on another rock and nodded.

"It shows. You're gonna miss her, huh?"

"More than anything. Since she was a little girl I've wished for a quiet life, but now I'm not sure I want it. I've grown used to listening for the sounds of chaos and her trying to hide whatever it is. It keeps things interesting." He chuckled at a memory. "Do you know she once tried to hide a baby killer whale in her bedroom?"

"Really?" Even Sora was impressed at that one.

"And that's not to mention when she accidentally turned her guppy friend into a howling hairfish. Or when she went looking for the Wishing Starfish so she could have two tails and dance like a human." Triton sighed. "There's still so much she doesn't understand about the life she's chosen. I don't think you fully understand the distance between sea and land. It's more than just geography. She has a lot to learn. It's going to be hard. It might even be painful."

"But she'll have Prince Eric."

"Yes. I'm glad she's happy with him. He'll look after her in her new life, and she'll teach him a thing or two as well."

"But that's not enough for you."

Triton looked sideways at Sora. "Privacy isn't something you take well to, is it?" He turned back to the flagship. "All a father ever wants for his children is for them to be safe and happy."

Sora looked at his hands in their fingerless gloves and murmured, "I never knew my dad, but I guess if I had to choose, I'd want him to be like you."

Nobody in his court would ever talk to him like that; so familiar, without watching themselves and worrying about offending him. Triton looked at the human boy who'd achieved more in his short life than the kings of the Seven Seas had done in centuries. "I'm honoured."

"King Mickey reckons Ariel is the Princess of the Heart for this world."

Triton nodded. He'd suspected as much himself, but then he was biased. He'd met King Mickey years ago and learned all about the Princesses of the Heart, the keyblades, and the darkness those who wielded them were destined to fight. When he met him again, years later, it had struck Triton how the little mouse king seemed to have aged from the inside out with all the responsibilities weighing on him. Being a keyblader was more about accountability than destiny, he'd grasped, and surmised that being a Princess of the Heart would be much the same, only with more danger and less ability to protect oneself. Consequently, when he discovered Sora and Ariel together, and learned that Sora was the Keyblade Master, Triton had reacted on instinct – not his finest moment.

"Did I ever apologise to you for treating you so harshly despite all you'd done for her?"

Sora drew his legs up and pressed the soles of his feet together, rocking back and forth on his rock. "You think you need to?"

"I wasn't very fair."

Sora shrugged. "You were just looking out for Ariel. Like you said; that's what fathers do, right?"

Life was good after that. Affairs between land-dwellers and merfolk blossomed. Triton watched the rest of his daughters marry and settle down. They all chose mermen, although Adella had a brief fling with a duke from some landlocked country, who visited Eric's kingdom as a diplomat during a long, hot summer when dabbling in the sea was the only way to keep cool.

"He was okay," she said to Arista afterwards, not knowing her father could hear her. "But having to go to the surface all the time was a real drag after a while. He couldn't hold his breath for more than a minute! My skin kept drying out and my hair was practically desiccated with all that time in the sun. I don't get what Ariel thinks is so great about human men. Give me a strong tail, big pecs and soft fins any day."

Triton blushed so hard the water around him started to boil.

He visited Ariel whenever he could, and doted on his first grandchild. Melody was human, but had a temper like a sea-storm and the obstinacy of the tide.

"Just like her mother."

"I was never so full of myself!" Ariel protested. She sat down in the waves in her human bloomers, because apparently it was bad form for the queen to drench her gown, and Triton couldn't haul himself any further up the beach without drying out.

He laughed. "You were determined though. You pointed yourself at a problem and didn't give up until you'd overcome it. Your methods were often … less than sensible, too."

She blushed, obviously remembering some of the things she'd done as a child and teenager. "But if I hadn't, I never would have met Eric, or helped Sora, or done anything I could be proud of. I've done a lot as queen to help relations between merfolk and humans, haven't I?"

"More than I ever did," Triton admitted. "Which I can see now was bigoted and unfair. I'm glad I have you around to set a good example for me to follow."

"Oh, Daddy." She leaned against him. He put his arm around her, the way he'd stopped doing while she was growing up and looked at him like an enemy, or an unwanted barrier between her and the rest of the world. "I love you, Daddy."

"And I love you too, sweetheart."

He thought life was perfect, until one day she came running down the castle steps onto the shore, kicking off her shoes and not bothering to remove her dress as she splashed into the shallows and screamed for him. He came, as he always did. He had scouts who relayed the message, but it was still an hour before he got there. By the time he arrived she'd cried herself dry and her make-up was a smeary mess.

"Is it true?" she demanded. "Is it true I'm not fully human?"

A chill went down his spine. "You have the appearance of a human. You can walk on land."

"That means I look like human. That doesn't mean I _am_ one."

Triton's heart clenched. He'd hoped this would never come up.

"Daddy, tell me the truth. Did your magic actually make me human? Did it -" Her voice caught.

It was another reason relationships between Atlanticans and humans had been prohibited by even the most lenient kings of the past. Humans were frail, short-lived creatures compared to merpeople. The average mermaid or merman lived three times as long as the average human, aged at a third of the speed, and didn't get sick from the same diseases. Some human alchemists, from the first days when merfolk were more than stories to land-dwellers, had tried to distil this and implant it into humans. They had captured, tortured and killed many merpeople, all to no avail, which had led to King Glaucus to decree that no mermaid or merman must ever show themselves to humans again.

Of course, there had been those who broke the rules. Long before Ariel struck her bargains with Ursula to walk on land, other mermaids and mermen had fallen in love with humans. They'd kept their tails, however, and lived out their relationships in the forms they were born with, only to find tragedy waiting for them at the end. To cross so many boundaries in the name of love, only to watch your lover weaken, grow old and die while you stayed young and strong was too painful to bear, and many of them killed themselves when their lovers died.

Watching his precious daughter as she got her answer, Triton had to agree with his ancestors. Love between merpeople and humans was as painful and cruel as it was rewarding.

"I'm going to live so much longer than a human. Than anyone at court. You mean Eric will … will …" Ariel held a hand over her mouth like she was going to be sick. "And Melody? What'll happen to her? She's half human. Am I supposed to watch her grow old and die as well? Or will she have to watch all her friends grow old and leave her instead? Am I supposed to just … just stand around like … like …" Ariel raged like Triton had never seen before. Even the worst of her teenage temper tantrums couldn't compare. Love for her husband and child had lit a fire inside her. It burned in her eyes when she looked at him. "What about how merfolk die compared to humans?"

Triton lowered his eyes.

"Daddy."

"We become sea foam. You know that." It was the fate of all merpeople. In exchange for their longevity, when they died they returned to the sea and became part of it.

"Do I have a human soul to go with my human body?"

And there it was. There was the question he'd been dreading ever since Ursula was defeated, the Heartless routed, and he gave Ariel what she wanted most: a chance to be with her true love. Merpeople didn't have souls like humans. Human beliefs said their spirits went on living after their frail bodies had given in to age and decay, but merpeople had no such idea anywhere in their history. Foam was foam. When you were gone, you were gone.

"Daddy!" Fresh furious tears welled in Ariel's eyes. "When I die, will I become sea foam too?"

"I don't know, sweetheart. This has never been done before."

"So I may have to watch Eric and Melody die, and never be reunited with them even when I die too?" She shook her head. "No. No, I won't accept that. I can't take that risk. I won't … Daddy, can't you fix this? Can't you make me human properly?"

"That's beyond my magic, Ariel. My trident changes things from one form into another. It could transmute your tail because it was just exchanging one form of flesh for another, just as I can exchange and transmute the power of the current into energy blasts when I fight, but as for creating something from nothing …" He shook his head.

Her eyes shone with that strange light – the one they'd contained when she shouted at him for sending Sora away the first time, right before she took matters into her own hands and nearly got herself killed by doing the right thing.

"I see," she said, strangely calm.

Unease blossomed in Triton, but she would say no more about it.

Neither Ariel nor Eric ever brought the matter up when Triton saw them. He wondered whether Eric even knew about the problem at all. To all appearances Ariel seemed as happy as ever with her life. Melody grew into a fine girl, and her parents were obviously proud of her. Triton dared to hope Ariel had accepted there were some things you just couldn't change, and had decided to make the most of her family while she had them. He'd had to accept that when Athena died. He'd raged at the world, too, but in the end been forced to accept that while his wife was gone, his daughters remained. Maybe there was enough of him in Ariel that she'd follow suit.

Then one day she didn't come home. Nobody knew where she was. Eric was frantic, Melody bereft. The humans searched everywhere, but found no sign of their missing queen.

Triton sent out his guards as well, but they came back empty-handed. When he told Eric, Triton couldn't offer more than a promise that wherever she was, she would be found, even if he had to give himself legs and walk onto land to do it. In private he added a second promise: that if anything or anyone had harmed her he would wreak a terrible reckoning. His trident glowed hot in his hand and he did something he'd never done before.

Using the magical reverberations of this trident, which resounded across and between worlds until they reached a keyblade, Triton called for Sora.

Sora came without hesitation. He was older now, taller and stronger, but still carried himself with the easy charm and impudence of someone who honestly thought things would turn out all right, no matter what. He didn't bring Donald the Wizard, or Goofy the Royal Guard, and made his apologies on their behalf.

"Duke Mortimer tried to pull off a coup to depose King Mickey, and he hooked u with some pretty shady characters to do it. They actually managed to create a fake keyblade. It got messy, but we dealt with it. Thing is, they're all really busy with cleaning up at the moment, but I couldn't say no when I got your message, King Triton."

"For which I'm grateful," Triton gritted, not because he was angry with Sora, but because the sun was setting and if another day dawned with Ariel missing he'd go mad.

Sora listened to both Triton and Eric, promised he'd try his best, and went off to use magic they couldn't even begin to emulate. Triton hated giving up control like this, but when it came to his family's safety he'd sacrifice anything. Sora's keyblade may be able to find a lost Princess of the Heart faster than they could find a lost queen or daughter.

Sora found her in a far-flung kingdom, so small and distant that it'd never even heard of Eric's. She'd been washed up on the tide, dragging herself out f the surf on her hands and knees like something from a nightmare. She looked nothing like a human queen, or a mermaid princess. She looked like a monster, covered in blood, her tongue missing and her eyes bright with agony. The cecaelia, Morgana, had used little finesse. She'd concentrated on nothing more than besting the princess who'd beaten Ursula, and finally proving herself more capable than her more famous sister. To that end, she'd mutilated Ariel in order to give them both what they wanted most.

Sora's face was tight when he arrived back at the castle with Ariel in his arms. Triton reflected later than he'd never seen the boy afraid before. Sora had faced off against devils, witches, monsters, demons and creatures nobody had names for, but he looked more distressed by what had been done to Ariel – what she had done to _herself_ – than by any of that.

_I'm human now_, Ariel wrote when she was able. Her hand trembled with pain, but she laboriously scratched out: _I won't be sea foam. Morgana cast a forbidden spell that not even Ursula could manage. It cost me my voice, but it was worth it._

Triton looked at his little girl and felt like he was dying a human death himself. It had cost her far more than just her voice.

"You can't blame yourself, King Triton," Sora said when he found him in Ariel's abandoned grotto.

Triton had blown up the statue of Eric when he was still just a prince, but after the wedding he had used his trident to rebuild it. He could do that. He could substitute one thing for another – broken pieces for a whole statue, or a tail for legs. The statue was still there, plus all the collection of human things she now knew how to use properly. No more combing her hair with forks. No more trying to play music on tobacco pipes. These things were part of her past now, and Triton felt the same way.

"If I hadn't given her human form, none of this would have happened."

"You were doing what you thought was best." Sora floated down to perch beside him, as if they were old friends and confidantes. "Just like she thought what she was doing was for the best. It was her decision to go to Morgana."

Ariel would never talk again. She'd never be able to sing her daughter to sleep. Every time she walked, it would feel like she was stepping on needles. Every time she opened her mouth, her severed tongue, destined never to heal properly, would start to bleed. She would always be in pain, from now until the end of her days, but those days would as short as any of her subjects' and she wouldn't become sea foam at the end. Morgana's terrible spell had exchanged her longevity and her quality of life for the human soul she craved. Still, the price Ariel had paid was far too steep. She had given up her home, her people, and her father and sisters to be with Eric and bring Melody into the world. She had given up everything else to keep them.

"I should have been able to help her," Triton said softly, not like a king, but like a father who'd failed in his one basic duty: to make sure his children were safe and happy.

"One thing I've learned? You can't predict _all _the consequences of every decision you make, and no matter how much you want to, you can't help everyone." Sora dropped his eyes to look at the tail he'd shapeshifted so he could move about underwater. "You may really, really want to, and try as hard as you can, but in the end they have to choose to let you help them. They may make dumb decisions, but you can't tell them they're dumb because they won't listen until they're ready. If they choose to deal with stuff on their own, there's no much you can do about it except be there to help them afterwards. It sucks, but that's the way it is."

"That sounds like the voice of experience."

"Yup."

"Did it work for you?"

Sora was thoughtful for a moment. "Yeah," he said eventually. "It took time, and loads of effort, and for a while the person I was trying to help kept running from me like _I_ was the enemy, but I guess it turned out okay in the end. He's much better now. He even started smiling again – which was rare enough even _before_ all the weird stuff happened." His own smile was kind and understanding – far kinder and more understanding than a human of his tender years should've been able to generate. "It may not feel like it now, but it does get better, as long as you don't let the bad feelings pull you down. If you start blaming yourself, you can't be there for the person you want to help because you're too wrapped up in your own feelings."

Exactly what he'd done after Athena was taken from him. It hadn't worked then, and it wouldn't help now, but Triton knew better than anybody alive – human or merfolk – that knowing something and feeling it were two very different things. Irreconcilable, some might say. His mind had already accepted the choice he'd wished Ariel would never have to make, but his heart convulsed with shame and regret that he hadn't been able to fix things _for_ her. He had tried when he gave her legs, but he had failed.

"I'm her father," Triton said bitterly. Sora's company invited candour. "A father is supposed to make things _better_."

"You can help make things better for her now."

"How?" Ridiculous, a king asking this of a child, but Triton didn't feel much like a king right now. He didn't feel much like an adult at all. He wished Athena was there to talk to.

But she wasn't, and this strange and powerful off-worlder _was_. No matter than Sora was a boy, not a man; he'd had experiences, been places, seen and done things that nobody else in this world had.

Sora pulled his tail up and flapped his fins, as if they were feet and he was pressing his soles together so he could rock back and forth on his rock. "By being who you've always been – someone who loves her unconditionally, no matter what."

Triton stared at Sora for a long time. "You," he said eventually, "are not bad for a human."

Ariel was on the beach when he arrived. The servants had been sent away, apart from Grimsby the butler, who had practically raised Eric and was considered more like family than part of the help. Eric was on one side, Grimsby on the other, and between them they propped her up. Ariel let out tiny mewls of pain whenever her feet touched the floor. Melody trailed behind with a stricken expression, eventually kneeling beside Max, the ancient slobbering sheepdog, and burying her face in his fur. Triton pulled himself up the beach and remembered that same expression on all his daughters' faces when he had to tell them their mother was gone.

Ariel gasped when he waved his trident and stood up in the surf. He was wobbly, unused to feet, but he made the few steps needed and wrapped her in his arms. She fell against him, wincing but smiling. He'd return to the sea and change back soon enough, but for now his little girl needed him, and he was willing to do whatever it took to help her cope with the consequences of what she'd done. He had done it when she was a child riding wild seahorses, rehoming starfish and collecting human bric-a-brac, and he wasn't about to stop now. You didn't stop being a parent just because your children grew up and flew the nest.

Ariel's hands bunched against his back as she ignored the pain and held him as tight as she could.

"I love you too, sweetheart," Triton replied.

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_**Fin.**_

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**Side-flings, Homages and Downright Rip-offs**

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"_She needs to grow up," said Arista when she found pages of Ariel's half-baked plan to build a 'human boat thing' that worked underwater. _

-- One episode of the old pre-canon TV series for _The Little Mermaid_ centred around an early submarine, manned by Hans Christian Anderson and his cat, which Ariel and (eventually) King Triton had to rescue and return to the surface, whereupon he wrote the original story on which the film is based.

"_She needs a boyfriend," groused Adella while clearing up the mess in the princesses' bedroom after Ariel unintentionally rode a wild seahorse through it. _

-- According TV series, Adella was a bit boy-mad. The wild seahorse is a reference to an episode in which Ariel rescues and attempts to rehabilitate Stormy, a supposedly untameable giant seahorse.

_The pirates who had killed Athena were not the same as Eric's court …_

-- Side-fling to the prequel movie _The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning_.

_He visited Ariel whenever he could, and doted on his first grandchild. Melody was human, but had a temper like a sea-storm and the obstinacy of the tide. _

-- Melody first appeared in the straight-to-video sequel _The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea._

_It was another reason relationships between Atlanticans and humans had been prohibited by even the most lenient kings of the past. Humans were frail, short-lived creatures compared to merpeople. The average mermaid or merman lived three times as long as the average human, aged at a third of the speed, and didn't get sick from the same diseases._

-- One of the major differences between Anderson's original story, _Den Lille Havfrue_, and the Disney movie version of it (en. wikipedia. org/wiki/The (underscore) Little (underscore) Mermaid).

_They had captured, tortured and killed many merpeople, all to no avail, which had led to King Glaucus to decree that no mermaid or merman must ever show themselves to humans again. _

-- In Greek mythology, Glaucus was the name of a sea-god.

_The cecaelia, Morgana, had used little finesse._

-- A cecaelia (pronounced suh-SAY-lee-uh) is a mythical being, much like merpeople, combining the head, arms and torso of a woman (more rarely a man) and, from the lower torso down, the tentacles of an octopus or squid. Morgana originally appeared in _The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea_, where she was voiced by Pat Carroll (who also voiced Ursula in the first film and both _Kingdom Hearts_ and _Kingdom Hearts II_).

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End file.
